Queen of Katwe role a ‘passion’ project for Oscar winner Nyong’o
After Lupita Nyong’o won the 2014 Oscar for her performance in 12 Years a Slave, she seemed to disappear from the big screen, even though she kept working.
Nyong’o had an unrecognizable performance-capture role as Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And she did the voice of mother wolf Raksha for the remake of The Jungle Book. She even managed a Broadway stint as a teen orphan in Eclipsed, which earned her a Tony Award nomination for best actress.
So for most fans, the Kenyan-raised Yale School of Drama graduate seemed to have vanished after her high-profile introduction.
Now the 33-year-old is officially back with her live-action role portraying the protective mother of a Ugandan chess prodigy in Queen of Katwe. The Mira Nair film is based on the Tim Crothers book The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster.
The drama chronicles the true story of Phiona Mutesi’s early life as an unlikely chess champion from the Katwe slum in the Ugandan capital city of Kampala.
“I’m so grateful for the Oscar because it’s afforded me an opportunity to work on something I’m passionate about, like Queen of Katwe,” Nyong’o said at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
Dedicated as always, she arrived in Uganda three weeks before filming to immerse herself in the culture. She absorbed the Katwe environment, the lifestyles and how the locals walked and talked and what clothes they wore. More critically, she got to know first-time actress Madina Nalwanga, who plays Phiona, and she met her real-life counterpart, Phiona’s mom, Harriet.
“Harriet’s a very grounded individual and she’s guarded and very witty,” Nyong’o said. “It really informed the decisions I made in playing her.”
She also came to appreciate why the single mother of five was at first opposed to her daughter getting involved in chess competitions.
“For Harriet, dreaming was the dangerous enemy because of the cards life had dealt her,” Nyong’o said.
“She knew nothing but strife, and that was the world she was preparing her children for.”
To bond, Nalwanga and Nyong’o, and the local actors who play her other children went shopping together and enjoyed communal meals. To converse with the kids more effectively, she learned a bit of the local language.
Nyong’o and Nair have been friends since 2007, when she was an intern at the filmmaker’s New York production company.
“Mira is someone I have admired and respected for a long time and it’s been a dream to work with her in front of the camera at last,” the actress said